Simon May's Blog

Devices, Services, Life

Posts about Mobile:

Anything that’s mobile related, but not necessarily iPhone or Windows Mobile

Do you trust your mobile app store?

Why?  Let me start over for those who might not be with me yet.  Mobile devices like iPhone, iPod Touch, Android based handsets, Nokia devices and Windows Phones have these things called “App Stores” where you can get the latest applications to enhance your device.  They’re a one stop shop for things that work.

Most of the time the vendor, Apple in the case of iPhone and iPod, run those stores but on some platforms like Windows Mobile you don’t have to go through the app store to install apps.  The same goes for “jail broken” iPhones.  There are also independent app stores, often more websites really that offer a wide range of free and paid for apps.  There are also open libraries that allow developers to just add their stuff.  Google’s Android platform, which powers the Nexus one, is a kind of cross between open library and App store.

Are any of these a better or worse model than any other.  I don’t think so, not until you bring trust into the scenario.

So who do you trust to give you great apps and what are you trusting them to do?

I guess most people want explicitly:

  • Applications that work on their device

There’s probably something implicit though in the offering of any application by the devices manufacturer.  That it’ll be safe.  That the application you just installed won’t try to steal your data, your identity.

There’s long since been a battle with Apple and developers for not allowing in some applications for some very out there reasons.  I wonder how many times it was because the App was trying to steal your identity?  I wonder if any got through?  One did into the Android marketplace and that was a problem, it was an application that purported to be a banking app but it stole your bank details.  Bad.  Very bad.

Did people install it because it was in the app store and so they believed there was “implicit trust”.  I suspect so.

What can you do about it

At the moment the best thing to do is to crowd source that trust.  Reviews on sites build trust, use that to your advantage and only install applications with lots of positive reviews.

Alternatively do your homework.  Get educated.  Learn about the developer and determine for yourself if they seem like they are worthy of your trust.

Will this be sorted out?

Sure if you start telling people that trust is important.  Finally, it feels like there’s a business opportunity in there to me…

Living with the Touch Dual

I said I’d write this up eventually, well after using the device for a while about my experience with it.  I could do it in two words, but that would be a short post, “Really Great!”.  To put it simply this is the best Windows Mobile I’ve ever used, better than the Hermes – and that’s saying something!Living with the Touch Dual

Lets start with the form factor of the device.  It’s a slider, like lots of other mobiles these days, and that’s probably one of the reasons it’s such a good phone.  Now I’m using Slide Actions it really works like a slide phone.  If I slide up the screen it will unlock s2u2, if I slide down it locks the screen with s2u2.  If it’s ringing and I slide it up, which I actually do much more than use the answer button, it answers the call.  Similarly if I slide it closed when in a call it hangs up.  I find I actually never use the call and end buttons.  The next fantastic thing about the form factor is the “proper” phone key-pad, by proper I mean it’s a 12 key keyboard just like most phones.  Why are these two things the most important thing about this phone for me?  Because I can now use this just like a phone, like everyone else.  It’s also great because it’s slick and thin and soft and rubbery in the hand.

Next, it’s the interface.  T-Mobile, who I’m still really impressed with, haven’t over customised the interface.  It’s fast and responsive and the touch cube is a great replacement for most of the physical buttons.  I find it works best if I just use the small area over the T-Mobile logo to start it.  I also find the D-Pad really nice to use, just like the keyboard it’s fast and responsive.

With all the mod’s I’ve made I don’t have to use the stylus all that much, but that again is a good little tool, it’s nice and solid and feels nice to hold too.

The camera suffers from the normal rubbish lens, but it’s a convenient little snapper and the newer software, version 5 of camera, is really good.  Out of the box the finger friendly Camera Album is really cool too – often makes people I show it to go “ooooh”.

All in all, this is really the best phone I’ve had for about 3 years now.

The best things in life are free…well a pound!

One of my favourite shops for gadgets in England is a chain called Pound Land!  They’re really great at bringing in some basic technology really cheaply, actually for £1 gbp!The best things in life are free...well a pound!

Previously I’ve bought a USB hub, a retracting USB cable with multiple phone adapters for charging, Cat5 cables and other stuff.  On Monday I picked up a USB to cigarette converter for charging anything USB in the car – actually this was a second one of these, they are just so useful when I saw they had them back in I had to get one.  I also bought a second retractable USB cable, not for the cable but for an adapter.  A micro USB to normal USB adapter.

Two quid well spent !

Bluetooth headset for under £5

When I wandered into Tesco at lunch time today I spotted this fantastic bargin.  A Bluetooth head set for just £4.98, so I bought two.Bluetooth headset for under £5

They are pretty basic so there isn’t much to say, I’ll post a mini review at some point.  It has all the basic features and it Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR, comes with a car charger too.  I also happen to have a USB charger for it, think it’s a new Nokia style one.  It was simple to pair, pairing code is 1234, Let me know how you get on.

[EDIT:] I’ve now tested on two people with my touch dual.  Sound quality for me was ok, a little faint perhaps.  Sound quality for the person on the other end was described as “like listening to vinyl”…make of that what you will.  I’m happy for £5, but I’ll let you know about longer term usage.

Here’s a link to it on Tesco’s web site.

Bluetooth headset for under £5

HelloTwitFace launch

I’ve just spent this evening on a bit of a GeekOut quest.  I’ve just put the finishing touches on HelloTwitFace.  It’s a really simple app that combines three of my favourite mobile sites, hellotxt, twitter and facebook.

I think this is the first app to include hellotxt in any way, let me know on that one.

It’s a very simple Windows Mobile app that draws the mobile versions of the above into a tabbed environment and uses hellotxt to do the updates.  I’ve been using it for a week and it seems to work really well.  I’ve also built in MoDaCo AppToDate support and it works just great!

Now to tell people about it!  Oh and sorry about the rubbish Icon!

On10.net cover WinMo 6.1

It’s quite interesting watching the various feeds and streams of news on the Internet, I’m getting quite good at things now and have started to notice a definite reporting curve.  One source I watch is Channel10, a Microsoft channel for enthusiasts.  These guys are “on the tail”, they wait a few days and help to continue to generate buzz.

They’ve published their “top” (or all 10?) new features of WinMo 6.1 just here.  My favourite is:

3. Threaded SMS – threaded text messages make it easy to follow the conversation

By the way, channel10 is one for your TVtonic or BigScreen headlines subscription, their videos are great.  I got into them with their CES coverage.

CTIA starts…good things happen

Well CTIA has kicked off and msmobiles are reporting that lots of devices have Windows Mobile 6.1 installed, that’s in line with what I heard about the launch dates.  There is a full review of WinMo 6.1 here.  The interesting thing is having played with it it is important…hopefully the carriers won’t be far off in releasing ROM updates.  It’s important because it adds the functionality required to make System Center Mobile Device Manager work.  For enterprises this functionality is a killer feature.  CTIA starts...good things happen

From a usability viewpoint there is threaded SMS in 6.1 and PocketIE (PIE) can zoom out, so it’s better for big pages.  And some phone and security enhancements.

Also at CTIA there is news, and this could be a hoax given the date, that Nokia are going to produce a WinMo device – I’d like to see that.

One final note for the day, I agree with Jason on this, we shouldn’t be able to use mobile phones at 30,000 feet….Data would be nice though…but some would probably say getting there with your bags would be nicer!

The best phone ever!

The best phone ever! 

Finally after 18 months with Orange and my Hermes I’ve moved on.  I’ve picked up a touch Dual, a.k.a Niki, a.k.a Touch Plus.  I’ve also moved to T-Mobile to get the best value package, after 5 years with Orange.  I have to say T-Mobile customer services have been superior in every way so far.

So the first thing I do when I get a new device is get it set up right.  That means getting extra software on to it to make it work just right.  The two best places for that are Modaco and XDA-Developers.

More detail after the jump.

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Read On…

Killer Web Services

I’ve posted in the past about what’s on my phone, what’s on my Media Center, and what my Media Center hardware is.  In the same theme this post is about the killer web services that I use. 

First up I should explain how I use these services, firstly I’m very mobile, typically I don’t do two days running in the same office and I’m all over the country and I travel by train…you might see frustration in my twitter or my FB status.  Every day I use a personal laptop, a work laptop, my personal Hermes phone and my work BlackBerry Pearl.  I need my stuff to stay in sync.Killer Web Services

Google Reader (Greader) – this is a great online reader, I use it to aggregate all my RSS.  I can access it from every device it’s totally web based and always in sync.  Why don’t I use something like News Gator?  Simple I can’t install it on my work laptop or BlackBerry.  The items I share in Google Reader appear in my FriendFeed and my Shared items.

FaceBook – rather obviously it’s a brilliant social site.  I update my status regularly and automatically with FBMCE and with FindMe and using the mobile version of the site.  When I finally get a code for HelloTxt that will be brill, I’ll be able to update my twitter status too, making HelloTxt a killer app…especially with an API!

National Rail Enquiries Wap Site – Lame I know, but the wap site is the most useful thing that National Rail do.

del.icio.us – Great social bookmarking, took me a while to get into it but now I use it exclusively and can see friends and colleagues bookmarks too.  Tagging makes it semantic and yes it’s part of my FriendFeed and you can find my shared bookmarks.

Google Browser Sync and Foxmarks- I use Firefox 2 for all my browsing and wherever I am, my Firefox stays in sync.  I use Firefox as a portable app too.  Foxmarks also keeps things in sync, but normally I use del.icio.us for bookmarks.

WordPress – That’s where you’re reading this.  I moved here from Live Spaces because it’s more flexible.  I get quite a few hits from the WordPress community, and WordPress tags.  I use the mobile version to view my stats and occasionally to post from my phones.  I have two blogs, this one and one for my house renovation.

Sharp Cast – I currently use Sharp Cast to hold all my photo’s, I moved there from Picasa, it’s great ‘cos it just keeps things in sync.  I think I’m going to move away though because I like idea of the Windows Live Gallery and Flikr hookups and because Flikr is much more customisable and semantic than Sharp Cast.

iGoogle – My homepage is iGoogle, I tried Live but I just prefer iGoogle.  I have a number of gadgets, including my stock portfolio (not as grand as it sounds) my scheduled recordings on Media Center,  my Gmail,  and Google Reader.  I’ve just added the FriendFeed gadget too.  What I really love, and what really suits my mobility is the PDA version, here I have BBC news, stock quotes and Google Reader items all in one place.

Hotmail – Obvious to all, but using Windows Live Mobile it sync’s with my Hermes.

I think that’s about it for now, but speaking of mobility, I’m currently on a train, writing this on Windows Live Writer packaged as a portable app, writing off line, and I’ll have to setup the vast array of links later.

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Projects I want to do

It’s fair to say there are a number of projects I want to do ggua year and I intend to post about each of them as I do them.

cctv: I want to be able to remotely monitor the house while we are away from home. By that I mean being able to monitor the front door and have it capture the face of all visitors. I also want it to alert on approach to the house.

Media Center setup: I want to change the setup so that the current MC box becommes a WHS box. We’ll buy a new PC which will becomme the media center. In the master bedroom I want to have a v2 extender, or possibly an X360. In the kitchen I want a squeezebox to pull music down from the WHS.

The Phone: I’m currently thinking about upgrading to the Touch Plus on T-mobile, unless Orange an beat the deal! I’ll be moving to a normal data package, so I’ll be able to use it to blog during the day, to check the home cctv and setup and anything else good.

Home automation: I want the lounge to be on IR remote control from the Harmony remote. I want the rest of the house to be on HomeEasy and for all that gear to be controlled by the Media Center! Need to work out a way to control the loung on that…perhaps I should re think the IR control in the lounge?

Security: I want an alarm for the house that notifies us about all sorts of household alerts, doors / windows left open, smoke, motion etc. I also want some of the house lights to turn on on approach to the house.

I think thats all the tech projects covered…they may be changed a little with our trip to Seattle in May.

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